Rapid advances in electronics and communications technologies, driven by immense customer demand, have resulted in the widespread adoption of data-driven devices, including personal computers and mobile communication devices, including laptops, mobile phones, smart phones and global positioning devices (GPSs). The demand has increased the requirements for data centers to receive, store and transmit large amounts of data and at higher speeds to support the ever-increasing bandwidth requirements from these communications technologies. The demand has, therefore, created a corresponding demand for higher bandwidth and higher speed transfer of data through networks, and the physical ports and devices of those networks that carry the data. As an additional challenge, many devices transfer data according to different communications standards, so the physical ports and devices of communications networks need to transmit and receive in different modes that support all of these standards.